And now on to Ringlets... what's a ringlet, you ask? A Ring/Bracelet of course!
Oh, the days of my youth. I have always been a little bit crafty. Growing up I would paint ceramics and rocks (I made the cutest dinosaur out of this large rock... wish I had a picture), crochet blankets, sew "things". I even dabbled a little in jewelry (including making horse hair bracelets from the tail of my favorite stallion, Konyok). One day while playing with some cord I came up with this snazzy hand accessory and wore it for a year. No joke... my entire sophmore year of high school. And to be honest, I STILL love it and would wear it if I thought it would match my work attire.
All you need is a length of cord (no more than 1 yard is necessary), satin, leather, whatever you want and if you want to add a little bling, a bead. It is super easy, and I know your teens will love this. You're going to really want to follow the pictures because explaining this via a keyboard will be a little tricky.
First, lay the cord down and put your middle finger over it and then loop it up over your finger and crisscross the cord.
Bring it down to your wrist and go under and back up.
Put both sides of the cord through the bead (bead is optional) and then bring the cord back down under your wrist. Tie off and your done!
It isn't easy to take off when you first start wearing it and will most likely have to untie it (although you can always add a clasp). However, if you keep it on for a length of time it will stretch a little and you'll be able to pull it over your finger and then it comes off easily.
I remembered seeing a tutorial once where someone cut up plastic water bottles, colored them with markers, and then melted them to make beads. Since most of the cups we get are already pretty colorful, I thought the soda cups would be even better.
First, I cut down the cup to just the design area.
The next step was to roll each strip of plastic and stick it in the tines of a fork. You could use needle nose pliers to hold it, but I couldn't find mine. My sons have this telescoping handled fork that worked perfectly for this and the tines kept it from unrolling.
With the electric stove burner on high, I held the rolled plastic over the burner, letting the plastic melt. You will have to watch carefully so the plastic doesn't burn, but heats enough to melt the layers and hold them together. The original tutorial I saw used a heat gun. Please be careful with this step. Stoves are hot and I'm relying on everyone to use common sense.
